Poll: We Don’t Think Today’s Kids’ll Have It That Great

Optimism about the future of American children is at its lowest levels in decades, according to a poll taken by Gallup [1]. “Forty-four percent of Americans believe it is likely that today’s youth will have a better life than their parents, even fewer than said so amid the 2008-2009 recession and the lowest on record for a trend dating to 1983,” Gallup reported.

“While the majority of young adults believe that today’s youth will be better off than their parents, optimism declines substantially among older Americans,” the pollsters found. “Less than half of 30- to 49-year-olds say the same, and even 50- to 64-year-olds (36 percent) and seniors (37 percent) do.”

The folks at Gallup see this data grimly, noting that “confidence in the traditional American dream – that each generation can work its way up in the world and have a better life than the previous generation – appears to be slipping away.” (May 2011)